How two former accountants transformed a Central Otago sheep and beef farm
How many accountants wake up one day and say, “I think we should buy a farm and become farmers”? Kem Ormond chats to Amanda Currie, who, along with her husband Adrian, did just that.
So, two accountants with not a scrap of farming knowledge decided to take the plunge and become farmers.
It’s the sort of story that reads more like a novel than a farming case study.
The driving force behind the change was Amanda Currie, while her husband Adrian was alongside her for the ride.
Tinwald Farm is a 750ha sheep and beef farm based between Cromwell and Wānaka.
The Curries’ story is an interesting one.
Amanda doesn’t mind talking openly about their journey, which entailed making a huge decision to shift a farming system that just didn’t work, and the changes that had to be made that ultimately helped move the business from significant losses to profitability.
Over the past eight years, the Otago farming business made changes that cut around $200,000 from its annual cost base.
But the journey hasn’t been straightforward, and it is the years of trial, error, measurement and learning behind those results that make this story particularly interesting.
Amanda and Adrian Currie bought Tinwald Farm in 2012.
By 2018, after dealing with cattle disease and another year of significant losses, Amanda said they reached a point where they had to ask themselves: do we sell, or do we find a completely different way to run this business? They chose the latter.
With farm manager Jason Sutherland, who was not averse to change, they began their journey.
What followed wasn’t an overnight success story.
In fact, Amanda is refreshingly open about the fact that they initially had little idea what they were doing.
They stopped using synthetic fertiliser, experimented with diverse seed mixes and biological inputs and, at times, watched production plummet.
They said goodbye to their agricultural advisers and jumped in knee-deep.
Over the following years they became far more systematic, educating themselves about soil biology, changing grazing management and continually running their own paddock trials to understand what worked and, equally importantly, what didn’t.
Amanda said that a critical part of that evolution was recognising the limitations of observation alone.
“It can be quite easy to see what you expect to see.”
Covid arrived in 2020, and lockdown gave Amanda time to source info on soil from various websites; she then decided to do some courses to get a better understanding of soil.
This led Tinwald to begin working with Āta and Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) in 2022.
Āta founder Dr Hugh Jellie has visited the farm over the past five years, usually every April.
He assesses the same 11 sites on the farm to evaluate the landscape, wind erosion, water erosion, and landscape regeneration.
The results guide the on-farm decision-making.
EOV puts a neutral lens over the farm, independently measuring what is actually changing in the landscape rather than prescribing or auditing a particular set of farming practices.
Āta then helps the team interpret those results through the principles of regenerative agriculture, identifying what appears to be working, where the limiting factors might be and how that evidence can inform their next decisions.
For Amanda, the independence of that advice has been particularly important.
It isn’t linked to selling them fertiliser, seed, chemicals, or another farm input.
Instead, the starting point is what the evidence from their own land is telling them.
Today, the economics of Tinwald look vastly different.
Annual operating costs have fallen from about $800,000 to $600,000.
They no longer carry what Amanda estimates would now be a $200,000-$300,000+ annual synthetic fertiliser bill, have eliminated winter cropping and its associated costs, use less machinery and diesel, and say the business is now genuinely profitable.
At the same time, they’re starting to see indicators of greater resilience across the farm, including animals reaching target weights earlier, improved reproductive performance and measurable changes in soil biology.
One recent experiment involved applying urea to half of two 5-ha paddocks; Amanda said they saw no difference in pasture response between the treated and untreated halves.
“We no longer drench our cattle or ewes as we work on the basis that healthy animals are resistant to diseases,” she said.
“We have imported dung beetles, four different types from four colonies, and they are doing a fantastic job keeping paddocks clear of dung.”
It’s not a story of everything working.
Amanda and the team are continually testing different approaches, and some have failed.
Their experience has instead become a cycle of change, measure, learn and adjust, using independent evidence alongside what they’re observing on the farm to determine what genuinely is effective.
Amanda’s advice to other farmers is similarly pragmatic.
“Don’t flick a switch and change the whole farm,” she said.
“Take one paddock, identify the limiting factor, change something, measure it, and see what happens.”
There’s another interesting commercial evolution underway too.
Tinwald has begun testing the nutritional profile of its beef, is selling some directly to consumers and exploring local retail opportunities, rather than simply sending its best product into the export system.
Tinwald offers a look at the economics and realities of regenerative farming: what has worked, what hasn’t, what happens to profitability when high fixed costs are removed, and the role independent measurement and advice can play in helping farmers make decisions without having a product to sell them.
Relaxation at Tinwald comes from overseeing the small Pinot Noir vineyard they have established on the farm to enjoying the company of their nine beautiful Clydesdales.
These magnificent horses are very much part of the property’s charm and a pleasant break from regular farm work.